Mixed Race Studies

Nation, miscegenation, and the myth of the mulatta/o monster 1859-1886

Universite de Montreal (Canada)
2009
261 pages
Publication Number: AAT NR60321
ISBN: 9780494603215

Jessica Alexandra Maeve Murphy

These presentee a la Faculte des etudes superieures En vue de l’obtention du grade de Philosophiae Doctor (Ph.D.) en etudes anglaises

“Nation, Miscegenation, and The Myth of the Mulatta/o Monster, 1859-1886” examines how Harriet Wilson, Harriet Jacobs, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and Robert Louis Stevenson use the trope of the mulatta/o monster only to subvert it by showing readers that the real monster is white, hegemonic culture. More specifically, it deals with how Our Nig, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, The Octoroon, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde depict the interracial body as a gothic house, one which is a microcosm for an increasingly hybrid and un-homely nation. The four texts under consideration in my thesis all explore what it means to be black and female (or dark and feminized) in the United States and Britain where to be white, male, and affluent is to have virtually limitless power over the bodies of women, particularly black ones.

Drawing upon Nancy Stepan’s notion of “proper places,” this dissertation looks at how interracial individuals challenged existing hierarchies in the mid-to-late nineteenth century by defying racial, gender, and class norms nationally and transatlantically. While many scientists of the period believed that mixed-race people were infertile and headed for extinction, the proliferation of such individuals attests to the fact that the number of racially hybrid people was increasing, not decreasing. For many Victorians and their American counterparts, the rise in this population as well as the shifting roles of black and white women, black men, and the working class compelled them to label these groups. It also heightened their concern with degeneration and their need to polarize black/white, female/male, and rich/poor. Yet, as this project shows, while such binaries are necessarily porous, England and the United States both made use of them to establish and define their national identities vis-à-vis one another. Whereas American writers like Jacobs and Wilson relied on such constructs to shame their country and to shape its future, British ones like Braddon used them to allege national superiority or, like Robert Louis Stevenson, later on in the nineteenth century, to reveal the changing face of the nation.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Making and Unmaking Monsters in Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig
• Chapter 2: Sexual Propriety and Racial Transgression in Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
• Chapter 3: The Transatlantic Gaze in M. E. Braddon’s The Octoroon
• Chapter 4: Mr. Hyde as Hybrid in Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekvll and Mr. Hyde
• Notes
• Works Cited

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Intermarriage and racial amalgamation in the United States

Biodemography and Social Biology
Volume 14, Issue 2 (1967)
pages 112-120
DOI: 10.1080/19485565.1967.9987710

David M. Heer, Professor Emeritus of Sociology
University of Southern California

Within the last few years tremendous popular interest has been aroused in the subject of Negro-white intermarriage. Fifteen years ago Negro protest leaders claimed they were interested only in jobs and votes and consequently downplayed talk of intermarriage. Moreover, conservative whites were comforted by Gunnar Myrdal’s report that although the ban on intermarriage was for them the most important aspect of the caste system, Negroes considered it the least important of the various discriminations they were forced to suffer. Very recently, however, the attitude on the part of many Negro leaders toward intermarriage has changed. Increasingly, such leaders, particularly the younger ones, are saying, “Why not?”

Earlier, most Negro thinking tended to isolate political and economic discriminations from the social discriminations symbolized, par excellence, by white attitudes toward racial intermarriage. However, in the writer’s opinion, such thinking represented faulty sociological analysis. A more thorough view of the situation reveals that restrictions on racial intermarriage may well be closely linked to the economic discrimination that Negroes in our society must endure. Davis (1949) has listed the main social functions of the family as the reproduction, maintenance, placement, and socialization of the young. Let us focus our attention on the placement function of the family in the contemporary United Stales, i.e. on the consequences which birth into a given family has for the youngsters future social position. Let us first remember that the transfer of wealth in our society is largely accomplished by bequeathal from one family member to another. The possession of wealth in our society not only entitles one to receive regular monetary interest; it is also a source of power, credit, and prestige. Secondly, it must be recognized that although universalism is the predominant criterion for the matching of job applicants to job vacancies in our society, particularism is quite important for many segments of it. In particular, in the building trades, jobs cannot be obtained without admittance to the union’s apprenticeship program and in many instances it is almost impossible to obtain entree into the apprenticeship program unless one is a son or other close relative of a union member. Third, social science research has established that entree to elite positions in our society is most easily obtained by those who grow up from birth in a family having relatively high status.  Birth in a high status family, of course, provides the financial means for obtaining advanced education. In addition, however, it is invaluable for giving one a sense of familiarity with the activities and functioning of high status society. This familiarity not only reduces the fear of interpersonal contacts in such a society but also increases the motivation to become a full participant…

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CNN DIALOGUES: The 2010 Census and the New America?

The Cecil B. Day Chapel of The Carter Center
 453 Freedom Parkway, Atlanta, GA, 30307
2011-08-31, 19:00-20:30 EDT (Local Time)

Moderator:
Wolf Blitzer, CNN’s Lead Political Anchor and Anchor of “The Situation Room”

Panelists:

Heidi W. Durrow, author of the debut novel The Girl Who Fell From the Sky
Edward James Olmos, actor and activist
Yul Kwon, Host of PBS’ “America Revealed”
Kris Marsh, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland at College Park
Dana F. White, Goodrich C. White Professor of Urban Studies at Emory University

If numbers don’t lie, what can the 2010 U.S. Census tell us about who we are and how we live? On August 31st, thought leaders in sociology, urban studies, and popular culture will come together in front of a live audience at The Carter Center in Atlanta to explore the implications of the 2010 census in the premiere session of CNN DIALOGUES.

This event, hosted by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, will feature Heidi Durrow, Edward James Olmos, Yul Kwon, Kris Marsh and Dana F. White.  This is the first in a series of three CNN DIALOGUES planned for 2011.

For more information, click here.